A Sunday Morning Prayer

God,

I am too busy for You.

My faith is broken.

My desire for You is weak.

My pride is overflowing.

But my inner hope is to make a positive difference for You.

To be that woman that is filled with unexplainable joy and love.

To be that woman that prays instead of worrying. 

To be that women who is beautiful because of who she is.

God, grant my inner hope.

Grab my attention and time unapologetically.

Repair my faith and strengthen my desire for You.

Empty me of pride and me with joy, love, peace, prayer, faith, hope, gentleness, and self-control.

Help me to be in awe of Your essence.

Don't let me miss my burning bush moments.

Your Princess,

Bethany

Grace in Friendships

So today, I did something daring and new. Leading up the event, I was petrified like a freshman on the first day of high school. I almost didn’t go. I almost through away my plans just because I was afraid. But I didn’t. To some, it may not seem like a big deal, but to me, it was monumental.

Tonight, I went to a benefit concert by myself, not planning to meet any specific person there, and only hopefully that someone would grant me the grace of a conversation.

Being a transfer student at a state university is tough, especially having a job and living off campus. It is hard to really get to know anyone outside of class or know how to get involved. I go through a range of emotions from being so enthusiastic to put myself out there to feeling completely defeated when someone forgets my name. But that is not how it should be, I learned that tonight.

The benefit concert was at a new local non-profit called Lemon Drop—all about promoting creative efforts in Springfield. The benefit concert was for to raise money for a young boy in Nepal to be able to return to his family. It was a good cause, so I thought why not.


I frantically searched for someone to go on this adventure with me, but everyone was busy. I saw that some people from my church, Emmaus, that I was acquainted with were attending on Facebook, so I prayed they would show up and possibly talk with me.


7:30 rolled around and my stomach got sick. I did not want to go. I didn't know what to wear. Where it was. Who was going to be there. I was going alone into a abyss of strangers.


Little did I know that if I gave myself and the people around me a little grace, I might actually form friendships.

The night was fantastic! The bands were fun. I bought a journal from India and two adorable photographs of children. But most importantly, I met people. A wonderful girl from my church introduced me to all these other people that go there. I sat a chat with some girls involved in campus ministries. I talked to a friend from a Bible study I visited and got introduced to her friend who studies Speech Pathology. 


All in all, I felt like I belonged--which is a feeling I don't think I have felt since high school drama club or every Wednesday when I relive those glory days via Glee on Hulu. 


I am so happy that I gave myself grace and put myself out there. I learned that GRACE is ESSENTIAL to forming new friendships, and I hope that those friendships will just continue to grow.

GRACE

"Life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of friendship" 

-Samuel Johnson quotes (English poet, critic and writer. 1709-1784)

Excerpt from Crazy Love by Francis Chan

In Francis Chan's book, Crazy Love, in the chapter called the Profile of the Obsessed, he shares a powerful passage from Frederick Buechner's The Magnificent Defeat:

"The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing--to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.

And then there is the love for the enemy--love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love.

IT CONQUERS THE WORLD."

(emphasis added)

My Middle Name is Grace

My middle name is Grace. My mom named me after herself. All my life I have wrestled with the concept of grace and what it is. Grace. It can describe a motion that is elegant and beautiful. It can mean to say a prayer before dinner. It can mean an undeserved gift.

I personally am quite clumsy. One look at my kitten heels and one would know that I tend to never look down at my feet when I am walking. I often joke after I trip, fall, or drop something, "My middle name is Grace you know".

Growing up in the Christian church, the word "grace" takes on a lot of different forms. It wasn't until I was older that I began to realize the fullness of God's grace and want that means.

This blog is going to explore all of these different definitions of grace and how I am learning to live in a more graceful manner each day.